Honey Vanilla Caramel Apples

For today and tomorrow I have two treats that are Halloween classic for me.  However, each one has a fun twist on the original classic.  Today we are doing the classic caramel apple.  I have a delicious caramel apple recipe that I have made before and love. Yet, I saw a recipe in the September issue Everyday with Rachael Ray that had me intrigued.  This recipe used honey instead of sugar and corn syrup.  I was curious how this 4 ingredient recipe would turn out.  The results were fabulous.
The recipe produced a lovely coated apple.  The caramel was the perfect chewiness.  I must say though my taste buds were a little confused as I ate the apple.  When you take a bite your eyes tell your mouth to expect that yummy regular caramel taste. However, you don’t expect to get that sweet taste of honey.  You can totally taste the honey in this caramel coating.  Now this isn’t a bad thing!  It is fabulously surprising, but still confusing to those taste buds at first.
Only down side I saw with this recipe is as the apples sit, the caramel starts to slide off.  I wonder if it is because the recipe says to use chilled apples, not room temp ones.  I was always told to use room temp apples, so I will try that next time.  It may also have been because I left them out after the 20 minutes of chilling the apples.  I didn’t want the caramel to get too tough.  This recipe does take sometime to cook on the stove top but is well worth the effort.

Honey Vanilla Caramel Apples

• 4 medium red apples, such as braeburn, cortland or fuji, chilled (I used gala)chilled in the fridge for at least 1 hour
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup honey
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Line a baking sheet with parchment. Skewer each apple stem with a lollipop stick or thick bamboo skewer.
2. In a 4-quart, heavy saucepan, heat the cream and salt over medium heat until steaming hot. Stir in the honey and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Continue to boil, stirring constantly, until the mixture registers 260° on a candy thermometer (I know my candy thermometer temp needs to be 255).  This takes about 30 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and add the vanilla.
3. Stir the caramel with a wooden spoon until it’s thick enough to coat the apples without running off, about 5 minutes. (If the caramel thickens too much, return the pan to medium heat and stir.)
4. Wipe the chilled apples dry. Working with 1 at a time, hold the apple by the stick and dip into the caramel, tilting the saucepan and twirling the apple to coat all but a 1-inch border around the stem. Place the caramel apples on the prepared baking sheet and refrigerate for 20 minutes before serving.